I promised you last time that this column was going to be about stuff that actually mattered since I wasted your reading moments blathering for nearly a thousand words on the relative merits of two Bravo reality shows featuring people who do absolutely nothing but hang out and behave like tools. I don't forget my solemn vows. Anyway, this week I learned â€¦

1. That Paula Abdul might be forced off of American Idol and have to simply live on her remaining millions and millions and millions of dollars. It's unfair. Look, all I said was that I wouldn't talk about the Preps and the Socs. Paula is IMPORTANT.

2. That some "Christians" who aren't even part of that Westboro loony bin (I'm just going to put that word in quotes from now on unless I'm discussing Desmond Tutu, Walker Percy, Dorothy Day, or some other religious person who spends their free time volunteering in soup kitchens or taking care of crack babies) are planning to go to the gay pride festivities in Charlotte, N.C., and start some shit. Why, for this sort of thing, don't we have a standing drag queen and bear militia (the queens for height, the bears for width) to go put on their biggest heels and stompin' boots and just form a human wall, blocking the inbred morons from getting even a glimpse of their target victims?

3. That young Latino and African-American males are raised with the warning that when pulled over by cops for any reason they have to keep their hands up on the dash or the wheel and in very plain sight. Sherri Shepherd explained this on The View when they talked about the arrest of Henry Louis Gates Jr. inside his own home. She said that white people never have to think about that. I know I've never thought about it. I don't have some big punch line for this or anything. Sorry.